I focus on the strategic, economic and business implications of defense spending as the Chief Operating Officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute and Chief Executive Officer of Source Associates. Prior to holding my present positions, I was Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and taught graduate-level courses in strategy, technology and media affairs at Georgetown. I have also taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. I hold doctoral and masters degrees in government from Georgetown University and a bachelor of science degree in political science from Northeastern University. Disclosure: The Lexington Institute receives funding from many of the nation’s leading defense contractors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and United Technologies.

Pentagon's Best-Kept Secret: F-35 Fighter Is Progressing Nicely

If you pay any attention to media coverage of the F-35 fighter program, then you know the Pentagon’s biggest weapons program is “troubled” (to use the favored adjective of reporters). Flight tests are lagging, costs are skyrocketing, and overseas partners are beginning to get cold feet. So the Joint Strike Fighter, as it used to be called, is looking like another black eye for the Pentagon’s fouled up acquisition system, right?

Wrong. The reality is that for the third straight year flight tests are ahead of schedule, the cost to build each plane is falling fast, and international partners are so enthused that new customers are getting in line for the F-35 on a regular basis (South Korea will be next). So how come you don’t know any of this? The reason you don’t know it is that political appointees have decided they can score points with Congress by attacking their own program, and national media always lead with the most sensational information.

For instance, Pentagon officials recently disclosed that the cost of building and operating the F-35 had risen to $1.5 trillion — without mentioning that a third of that total is unprovable estimates of future inflation and two-thirds of supposed increases from the program baseline reflect changes in how costs are calculated rather than real increases. Officials also didn’t mention it would cost two or three times more to stick with the current fleet of fighters, given the cost of maintaining aging aircraft. Most news accounts just cited the trillion-dollar price-tag, preferring to stick with the “troubled program” theme. Easy to write, no thinking required.

There’s another side to this story, and it’s mostly positive. It helps explain why none of the three services receiving the plane is going to cancel its version and why none of the allies who signed on to the program when economies were stronger is now going to back out. F-35 is well on its way to being the most capable, cost-effective tactical aircraft in the history of warfare, and you can see that fact clearly reflected in how the flight-test program is progressing, the production cost is falling, and other countries are jockeying to get the plane.

Flight tests. Let’s start with the flight tests that are steadily verifying all the performance features of the aircraft. The program has surpassed its goals for flight testing in each of the last three years, doing 15 percent better than planned in 2011 and 20 percent better than planned so far in 2012. Collectively, the three versions of the F-35 have now flown well over 2,000 times, accomplishing more than a quarter of the planned tasks in a comprehensive testing regime. By the end of this year, the most common version of the plane — the one that will be used by the Air Force and exported to most foreign customers — will be 45 percent of the way through all its flight tests.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the dangers of producing F-35s before testing is completed, because if problems are found then planes already built will supposedly require costly fixes. So far, though, the danger seems to be mainly theoretical: Wikipedia says the price-tag for correcting problems uncovered in testing is $1.3 billion, which is less than one-half of one-percent of the production cost for 3,000 domestic and foreign fighters. Another concern has been delays in software; however, as of today 95 percent of the plane’s airborne software is either being used in flight tests or being tested in labs. No show-stoppers in sight, either in the hardware or in the software.

Few outsiders realize how smoothly the F-35 flight-test schedule is unfolding, so here are a few milestones of progress thus far this year. On January 18 the Air Force version performed its first night flight. On March 22 it conducted its first night-time refueling mission. On April 21 it completed its first aerial-refueling mission while carrying weapons. The Marine version accomplished the same refueling with weapons on board two week earlier; designed to land on a dime almost anywhere, the Marine variant has performed over 500 short takeoffs and over 300 vertical landings. The flights generally go well, which is why the testing schedule is so far ahead of plan.

Production Costs. The factor that usually trips up new weapons programs is cost, because while nobody in Congress understands how to measure the stealthiness of an F-35, everybody thinks they understand a price-tag. Pentagon leaders have thoroughly confused this issue by making it sound like the cost of F-35 is going up while actually taking huge amounts of money out of the program each year. In 2011 they cut 122 planes and $10 billion from near-term spending plans for the program; in 2012 they cut another 124 planes and $9 billion; and now in 2013 they have proposed cutting 179 planes and $15 billion. Cutting the rate at which F-35s are produced definitely increases the cost of each plane, but during the Obama years the program has become more of a piggy bank than a money pit for Pentagon planners.

Obviously, any money that already has been spent can’t be recovered. However, when you look at the cost going forward to build each new plane, that’s coming down — and fast. The “unit recurring flyaway” cost for the most common variant of F-35 fell below $150 million each in the third low-rate production lot and will fall below $100 million in the fifth lot currently being negotiated. By the time its gets to the tenth production lot, the recurring flyaway cost of the most common variant will be approaching what legacy F-16 and F/A-18 fighters sell for today. Granted, that’s just what it costs to “drive it off the lot,” and doesn’t include items like training and spare parts. On the other hand, the price-tag on legacy fighters doesn’t include all the equipment they will need in combat (the F-35 price-tag does), and older fighters don’t have the F-35′s stealth.

Foreign Partners. The F-35 effort was conceived in the Clinton years as a program that would provide next-generation fighters not only for the United States, but for eight other countries. The United Kingdom contributed $2.5 billion to its development, while Italy and the Netherlands each contributed $1 billion. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Turkey each contributed over $100 million. Thus, any sign that these overseas partners are wavering in their commitment is taken as evidence that trouble may lie ahead for the program.

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I respect the fact that L Thompson’s main objective in his journalism is the ‘business dimension’ of the F-35 Program’s success, as he openly states, but it should be also disclaimed for the sake of Congress, the USAF and the US taxpayer, that very unfortunately, the F-35 is simply not sustainable nor affordable as a jet fighter recapitalization program, and as the Air Force and nation waits for everything to be ‘just fine’ with respect to the manufacturers ‘progress’, meanwhile the Air Force and nation loses capability and deterrence value daily!

Every year the USAF’s force structure becomes more hollow and the mere illusion of deterrence becomes more real… thanks to the ‘stay the course’ F-35 ‘business’ acquisition plan!

As he stated…. it would cost more to maintain our current fleet of aging fighters…. The F-15 is so overworked and so old they are frequently grounded due to safety issues and they tend to fall apart due to structural defects in the struts directly behind the cockpit. Time to move on. Cancel the F23 (nice plane but too expensive and not needed) and buy more F-35s.

One correction to information in my previous comment: “Specifically, in 2011, for the first time in U.S. history, non-moderate right-wing politicians (Tea Partiers & FRWs) were willing to allow the govt. to default on its multi-trillion-dollar debt. They forced Pres. Obama & Speaker of the House Boehner & moderates in Congress in both parties to surrender to their demands. And the result for the military? An additional $37B in spending axed on top of initial cuts totaling $450B, bringing the military spending reduction to the $487B (over a decade) mentioned.”

One correction to my previous comment: “Specifically, in 2011, for the first time in U.S. history, non-moderate right-wing politicians (Tea Partiers & FRWs) were willing to allow the govt. to default on its multi-trillion-dollar debt. They forced Pres. Obama & Speaker of the House Boehner & moderates in Congress in both parties to surrender to their demands. And the result for the military? An additional $37B in spending axed on top of initial cuts totaling $450B, bringing the military spending reduction to the $487B (over a decade) mentioned.”

One way to judge the legitimacy of F-35 costs, which I have not mentioned before, would be to calculate in today’s dollars the cost of producing the three planes it will replace, the FA-18A-D, F-16, and the Harrier. That said, the program has been badly managed, and the plane has been pushed without our nation’s having had a true debate over what our defense needs are in this brave new, post cold war world. The same is true of the Ford class carriers. The Navy locked those in without much debate as to whether they are what we need now, whether in a world where economic relationships and power seem to be at least as important as military power, we need their unique and very expensive abilities to project air power from sea deeply inland against sophisticated defenses.

One way to judge the legitimacy of F-35 costs, which I have not seen mentioned before, would be to calculate in today’s dollars the cost of producing the three planes it will replace, the FA-18A-D, F-16, and the Harrier. That said, the program has been badly managed, and the plane has been pushed without our nation’s having had a true debate over what our defense needs are in this brave new, post cold war world. The same is true of the Ford class carriers. The Navy locked those in without much debate as to whether they are what we need now, whether in a world where economic relationships and power seem to be at least as important as military power, we need their unique and very expensive abilities to project air power from sea deeply inland against sophisticated defenses.

This article is absurd. Shame on Forbes Magazine for not noting that Mr. Thompson’s Lexington Institute receives “quite a significant portion” of its financing ($2,400,000 last year) from the defense industry, by Thompson’s own admission. (-Wired Magazine, http://bit.ly/HNVdJf)

By the original plan, the USAF would have declared operational capability by now, and with 10 per month being manufactured. (-Aviation Week, http://bit.ly/MqPxqC) For Thompson to say this is “progressing nicely,” flight test goals “surpassed”, etc. is like saying someone “graduated high school in only a year” at age 30.

The F-35 is a step backwards. It’s not very stealthy. It’s not very fast (it’s slower than an F-15, F-22, F-16). It has a small payload (base config is 2 AA missles!). It’s a porky, mishmash of compromises that looks to be an utter failure on may different levels.

Again, we are aghast at this propaganda. Several allies are not buying the F-35 but instead buying the F-18F and G model Super Hornet. Why? Range, weapons payload, maneuverability are all in question especially when you consider the revealed 5th generation Chinese and Russian fighters. The F-35 does not measure up – and neither does the F-18F which adopted the shoot and scoot method of compensating but it is a heavier weapons platform with range. The Air Force should give ground support to the Army and let them fly the Warthog and we should build more A-10′s even if we have to re-engineer the molds. The F-35 will not be the same ground attack platform either. VSTOL is a waste of time. Maybe the Marines should also get some A-10 support while we figure out an intermediate air superiority fighter and build another medium bomber 1st fighter second platform. Meanwhile the F-18F should continue to be upgraded. The overall strategy should not be dictated by Congress regarding needs – they are all about pork. There should also be emphasis on drone tankers and wingmen. Tankers should also be more maneuverable and leave the domestic airline platform due to higher threat environments in the future. But the F-35 either needs to show dramatic improvement or be re-engineered as a drone.

Samit, Obviously you don’t understand Korean politics. EVERYTHING and I do mean EVERYTHING in Korea has corruption and back room dealings. It’s not wrong, it’s just the way they do business.

The F-35 is probably the best fighter ever produced and for a reasonable cost. A good analogy would be the Seawolf class submarine and the Virginia class submarine. The Seawolf is like the F-23. It has all of the bells and whistles. It costs too much and is already outdated in many ways where as the Virginia Class is smaller, cheaper and far more capable because it uses technology learned from the Seawolf. You put it in political terms where in military terms no plane or groups of planes in the world would stand a chance against an F-35. Before you bring it up the simulation in Australia they intentionally put the F-35 at a disadvantage disabling many of its systems including digital communications and increasing its RADAR cross section so there would be a contest at all. Look a little deeper than the headlines next time. Talk to a pilot who’s actually flown one. The ones I know say that it makes an F-18 look like a biplane by comparison.